1948 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1948.

Events

• January 6 – Poet Pablo Neruda speaks out in the Senate of Chile against political repression and is forced into hiding.
• January 28 – A debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston on the existence of God is broadcast by the BBC.
• February 5 – A private assembly of 50 major literary and artistic figures listens to a recording of Antonin Artaud's play Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de dieu whose broadcast on French radio three days earlier has been prohibited.
• May 4 – Release of Sir Laurence Olivier's film of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which will be the first British film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
• c. June 1 – The first volume of Winston Churchill's The Second World War (1948–1953) is published.
• September 8 – Première of Terence Rattigan's one-act plays The Browning Version and Harlequinade at the Phoenix Theatre (London).
• September 17 – The remains of Irish poet W. B. Yeats (who died at Menton, France in 1939) are re-buried at Drumcliffe, County Sligo, "Under bare Ben Bulben's head", having been moved from the original burial place, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, on Irish Naval Service corvette LÉ Macha. His grave at Drumcliffe, with an epitaph from "Under Ben Bulben", one of his final poems ("Cast a cold Eye/On Life, on Death./Horseman, pass by"), becomes a place of literary pilgrimage.
• November 13 – Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the original manuscript of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, having been purchased by a group of American Anglophiles in 1946, is presented by Luther H. Evans (Librarian of Congress) to the British Museum Library.^[1][2]
• First performance of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1944), a student production in English at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. This year also sees the première of Brecht's adaptation of Antigone, at the Chur Stadttheater in Switzerland with Helene Weigel in the title rôle.
• The 20th and last edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum is published by the Holy See.
• London publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson is founded by George Weidenfeld and Nigel Nicolson.
• The Pulitzer Prize for the Novel is renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• The Palatino serif typeface, designed by Hermann Zapf, is released by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.

New books

Births

• January 1 – Lynn Abbey (Marilyn Lorraine Abbey), American writer
• January 2 – Joyce Wadler, American writer and memoirist
• January 20 – Nigel Williams, English author, playwright and screenwriter
• February 3 – Henning Mankell, Swedish crime novelist, children's author and dramatist (died 2015)
• February 5 – Christopher Guest, English-American writer, actor and director
• February 19 – Clive Sinclair, English short-story writer
• February 28 – Mike Figgis, English writer, director and composer
• February 29
  • Hermione Lee, English biographer
  • Patricia A. McKillip, American fantasy and science fiction novel author
• March 4 – James Ellroy, American crime fiction author
• March 17 – William Gibson, American-born speculative novelist
• March 28 – Iman Budhi Santosa, Indonesian poet
• April 4 – Patricia A. McKillip, American science fiction, horror and fantasy author
• April 21 – Clare Boylan, Irish novelist (died 2006)^[3]
• April 28 – Terry Pratchett, English comic fantasy author (died 2015)^[4]
• May 31 – Svetlana Alexievich, Belarusian writer of literary reportage, Nobel Prize in Literature recipient
• June 14 – Laurence Yep, American author
• June 21 – Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish fantasy author
• July 22 – Susan Eloise Hinton, American young-adult author
• August 2 – Snoo Wilson, English playwright and screenwriter (died 2013)
• August 8 – Miranda Seymour, English novelist and biographer
• August 29 – Nick Darke, Cornish playwright (died 2005)
• September 16 – Julia Donaldson, English author and children's writer
• September 20 – George R. R. Martin (George Raymond Martin), American fantasy author
• October 6 – Zakes Mda (Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda), South African novelist, poet and playwright
• October 9 – Ciaran Carson, Northern Irish poet and novelist
• October 17 – Robert Jordan (James Oliver Rigney, Jr), American fantasy author (died 2007)
• Unknown dates
  • Ibrahim Al-Koni, Libyan novelist
  • Wolf Erlbruch, German children's book illustrator and writer
  • Suzanne Robert, French Canadian novelist (died 2007)
  • Edward Rutherfurd (Francis Edward Wintle), English novelist

Deaths

• March 6 – Ross Lockridge, Jr., American author (suicide, born 1914)
• March 10 – Zelda Fitzgerald, American novelist (killed in fire, born 1900)^[5]
• April 22 – Prosper Montagné, French chef and food author (born 1865)
• May 5 – Sextil Pușcariu, Romanian linguist, philologist and journalist (heart failure, born 1877)
• May 20 – Victor Ido, Dutch East Indian journalist, novelist and dramatist (born 1869)
• May 22 – Claude McKay, Jamaican American writer (born 1889)
• June 21 – Alice Brown, American novelist, poet and dramatist (born 1857)
• July 3 – Phelps Putnam, American poet (born 1894)
• July 5 – Georges Bernanos, French novelist (born 1888)
• July 21 – J.-H. Rosny jeune (Séraphin Justin François Boex), French science fiction writer (born 1859)
• July 27 – Susan Glaspell, American dramatist and novelist (born 1876)
• August 3 – Venetia Stanley, English correspondent (cancer, born 1887)
• August 19 – Frederick Philip Grove, German-born Canadian novelist and essayist (born 1879)
• September 8 – Thomas Mofolo, Sotho novelist (born 1876)
• September 9 – Lajos Bíró, Hungarian novelist, dramatist and screenwriter (born 1880)
• September 20 – Husain Salaahuddin, Maldivian writer (born 1881)
• October 12 – Alfred Kerr, German theatre critic (suicide, born 1867)
• December 13 – Michael Roberts, English poet and critic (born 1902)

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Richard Armstrong, Sea Change
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Percy A. Scholes, The Great Dr Burney
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: William Pene du Bois, The Twenty-One Balloons
• Nobel Prize for literature: Thomas Stearns Eliot
• Premio Nadal: Sebastián Juan Arbó, Sobre las piedras grises
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James A. Michener – Tales of the South Pacific
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: W. H. Auden: The Age of Anxiety

References